Category: Development

“UNITAID calls upon the global health community and governments to make Chagas disease a priority and support ongoing efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission and improve access to tests and treatments,” said Herve Verhoosel, UNITAID’s head of communication. “Together, by integrating it into primary health care and systematically screening mothers and babies, we can make Chagas a disease of the past,”… Read More

Infertility, which affects men and women, is a reproductive condition defined by the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. To compile the new in-depth estimates, WHO analysed all relevant studies on infertility from 1990 to 2021. The research shows that 17.5 per cent of the adult population experience infertility in their… Read More

The world has witnessed extraordinary health gains since the UN agency was established, including smallpox eradication, the near elimination of polio, and declines in maternal mortality.  Millions of young lives have also been saved through childhood immunization.  “The history of WHO demonstrates what is possible when nations come together for a common purpose,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a… Read More

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that in Equatorial Guinea, WHO is on the ground supporting the outbreak response.  “We have deployed teams to assist with case finding, clinical care, logistics, and community engagement. We have also helped to establish treatment units in the affected areas,” he said.   The number of officially reported cases remains at nine, with… Read More

The heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN-backed World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) have come together in the face of multiple global emergencies – from COVID-19 to Ebola – continued threats of disease spillover between animals and humans, loss of biodiversity and climate change. In… Read More

On the eve of World Tuberculosis Day, WHO announced that it will expand the scope of a five-year-old initiative in efforts to eradicate one of the world’s top infectious killers by 2030. TB mainly affects the lungs, but it is preventable, treatable and curable. Although deaths have dropped by nearly 40 per cent globally since the year 2000, 1.6 million… Read More

Briefing correspondents in Geneva at his regular weekly press conference, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “the claim that the accord will cede power to WHO is quite simply false. It’s fake news.” Countries will decide He made clear that countries themselves will decide the wording and scope of any global agreement on how to tackle the next pandemic, “and countries alone”. “No country… Read More

Access to NCD Medicines: Emergent Issues During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Key Structural Factors, highlights the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to NCD medicines, and the policies and strategies implemented by countries to both anticipate and mitigate the disruption that has hit medical supply chains. Pandemic shortages During the pandemic, people living with cancer, heart diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes and other NCDs,… Read More

Speaking during his latest media briefing, Tedros noted that the world is in a much better position now that at any time in the pandemic, which just entered its fourth year.  For the first time, the weekly number of reported deaths in the past four weeks has been lower than when the pandemic was first declared.  “I am confident that… Read More

“The surge in the global cocaine supply should put all of us on high alert,” UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said. “The potential for the cocaine market to expand in Africa and Asia is a dangerous reality.” Sky high supply and demand Criminal networks are now diversifying with alarming results alongside record levels of production, moving beyond the pandemic and… Read More